


Cake and Shoe Leather

by bethfrish



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-06-05
Updated: 2004-06-05
Packaged: 2018-02-21 12:13:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2467901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bethfrish/pseuds/bethfrish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snape hates birthday cake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cake and Shoe Leather

Four raps echo at your door, evenly spaced but with such an undertone of repressed impatience you know it can only be Draco. "Come in," you mutter, setting your quill down. You look up and Draco's standing in the doorway, holding a cake of all things. Birthday cake, small and round and smattered with overly-bright dyed frosting. 

"May I come in, sir?" You hate cake, especially birthday cake, and Draco is already two feet inside but you nod anyway. 

You almost forgot it was your birthday, but here's Draco, always ready and able to remind you of things you'd prefer to forget. Like the day you turned seventeen and James Potter tracked you down in the empty classroom where you were practicing for your NEWTS. You shuffle your papers around in Draco's line of vision and try to look the part of a busy professor. _What, Potter? Can't a guy wish 'is mate a happy birthday? You smell like firewhiskey._ Draco comes in and sets the cake on your desk like he's giving you a medal. 

He wouldn't tell you how he found you but _it's your birthday, isn't it?_ explained why, and every time his glasses slipped down his nose he grinned at you before flicking them back up. "And to what do I owe the honor of cake?" you ask Draco, pretending you don't know. _Look. Green and black. Slytherin colors._

You can't figure out why someone as cunning and, more importantly, as suspicious as Lucius Malfoy hasn't realized that you're playing both sides, and you don't know why his son is bringing you pastry, but it doesn't seem that he has, and there he is, and there it is. _Slytherin colors are green and silver, Potter._ "Just wishing my favorite professor a happy birthday." 

Pale green frosting, unevenly shaded, like the dye wasn't uniform, but he grinned anyway and set it down on an empty desk with a clatter. Draco's lips curl upwards. Malfoy charm, all white teeth and platinum hair. _"Happy Birthday Snape." I can read. Snape, that's you._ He jabbed you in the chest and giggled when he said that, pushing his glasses up once more as the lenses threw your own scowl back at you. "I made it myself," Draco informs you, drawing your attention to the neat silver lettering with his forefinger. 

"Thank you," you tell him with a tight-lipped smile, even though you hate birthday cake (cake in general), but you just want him to leave so you can feed it to the house elves or drop it in the trash bin or just get rid of it. _Ha, no gifts today, eh Snape?_ Draco's still beaming. _What lethal combination of ingredients did you put in here? Aww hey, it's on the level, your birthday and everything._

Grey eyes twinkle and Draco takes out a fork from somewhere up his sleeve. "Go on then. Have some." _Bet you didn't know,_ whispered close like a dugout conference, _made it myself. Did you now. Transfigured Sirius' boot!_ You take the fork and angle its side into the loopy "P" in "Professor". _He'd kill me if he knew!_ You wanted to say something snarky like, "What a smashing idea," but it was Potter and you and he didn't trade those kinds of jokes. 

Draco's staring at you expectantly, like the world will simply stop turning if you don't like his cake, so you shovel a piece into your mouth, too-sweet frosting melting down to its chemical components before you can swallow. _Well go ahead and have some!_ He magicked a chunk from the edge and popped it unceremoniously into his mouth. _I thought that was for me. Good stuff, a bit leathery though._

"Quite good," you tell Draco when you swallow. _Try some, Snape. Rather not, thanks. Don't be stupid, it's your birthday. Go away, Potter._ "Quite good indeed." And of all the things he could have done, all the things that James Potter has ever done to you, he grabbed you by the collar of your robe and he kissed you. Kissed you, right on the mouth, and it tasted like sugar and chocolate and the spice of firewhiskey, and maybe just a little like Sirius' boot. And it was the last thing in the world that you thought you wanted because it obliterated everything that you and James Potter had strived to be for seven years, everything that you had become without realizing it. 

Draco smirks and nods. "Ten points to Slytherin," you tell him, because you don't know what else to say, you never really know what to say, and what you need to learn is to keep people from interrupting your work because you were always better off before they came. _What was—You tell me._ He pulled away and stared at you, and you could still feel the sugar dissolving into nothingness on your tongue. _What. You tell me. I._ Draco never leaves until he has your approval, and now he does so now he can. He exits triumphantly and shuts the door behind him, mentioning something about Potions homework but you're not really listening. 

_I—_ You exhaled slowly, too afraid but not really afraid at all to lick your lips, and he backed away and wouldn't stop staring at you and _this never happened_ , oddly sober then, which made you wonder somewhere in the back of your mind how drunk he actually was to begin with. _Never happened, Snape. Right. I hate you. Feeling's mutual. Happy birthday_ and he nudged the cake forward and walked out of the room. 

When your doorknob clicks you take Draco's masterpiece and drop it into the waste bin like you planned, Malfoy porcelain and all. The green and silver (not black, the _right_ Slytherin colors) smear together and droop into one sugary glob on a crumpled piece of parchment. 

It's your birthday but you never eat cake. You hate cake, especially birthday cake. You hate it and you never eat it, not even when you were seventeen, and James Potter never kissed you, and you can't explain why every bite you've taken since then has the vague and inexplicable aftertaste of shoe leather, and the dull tang of firewhiskey on someone else's lips. 


End file.
